Q86 



RECAPITULATION. 



VV E have now made a hasty tour through one 

 of the departments of the subject which we un- 

 dertook to examine. From the foregoing survey, 

 which, however tedious it may have appeared to 

 the reader, is in reality a very rapid one, the 

 eighteenth century appears to bear a singularly 

 distinct and interesting character. In almost every 

 department of knowledge we fmd monuments of 

 enterprise, discover}', and improvement ; and, in 

 some, these monuments are so numerous, valuable, 

 and splendid, as to stand without parallel in the 

 history of the human mind. There have been 

 periods in which particular studies were more 

 cultivated; but it may be asserted, with confi- 

 dence, that in no period of the same extent, since 

 the creation, has a mass of improvement so large, 

 diversified, and rich, been presented to view. In 

 no period have the various branches of science, 

 arts, and letters, received, at the same time, such 

 liberal accessions of light and refinement, and 

 been made so remarkably to illustrate and enlarge 

 each other. Never did the inquirer stand at the 

 confluence of so many streams of knowledge as 

 at the close of the eighteenth century. 



But, in order to bring more immediately and 

 distinctly into view the leading characteristics of 

 the last age as deducible from the statements 

 which have been given, an attempt will be made 

 to sum them up in the few following particulars: 



